The BJP candidate from Malleswaram, Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, told me that nearly 4000 buses use the Malleswaram circle corridor (now an underpass) everyday. I suggested to him having a dedicated bus line starting from Malleswaram circle till Navrang circle and further, streching all the way on Mahakavi Kuvempu Road.

There is space for  a BRT corridor on either sides of the road. This will provide a huge incentive for people who use two wheelers, cars to shift to public transport. 

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BRT can be easily implemented on 1 way roads which Bangalore is filled with. We have to identify these wide one way roads.

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Fantastic presentation. The concept of a smallish circular route is an interesting one and can be used elsewhere - that needs only one lane instead of two.

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Please watch this IBN Live report-

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=9AdQLyDv2oo

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Hi Naveen

When you say
"in the long run, it will breed a new cult of similar drivers with even larger machines since profits will be linked to quicker services - & quicker services will be dependent on the traffic situation in a vicious cycle",
you are possibly basing it on the BLUELINE kind of experience of Delhi, or even the private operators in cities like Kochi or even parts of South Kanara.

Now, if you notice the UP Transport Dept ad, it has stated that they will entertain only operators with a minimum of a 4,000 vehicle fleet. Apparently, they have have read the situation correctly, and incorporated this clause deliberately in order to eliminate the small-time players altogether and to attract the professional Corporate sector players simultaneously. In as critical an infrastructure sector as public bus transport services, I wouldn't fault them for this, because I think it is in overall public interest. I would also liked to have provided for this in my 'policy paper', but I chose to be a little more 'politically correct', since I am generally surrounded by a lot many Socialists ( I am not talking of PRAJA). But, Mayawati can't be bothered with such considerations, and has gone ahead and done what she thought was right (not that she does that always). When big players like say TVS or TATAs come on to the scene, being as they are a lot more conscious of their public image, you can be sure they will play the game according to rule (particularly if they do not have to face unhealthy competition from pesky small-timers), and if the rules do not suit them, they will lobby to have them amended. And, that's where the regulator (and PRAJA) comes in, to provide the balance.

There are enough examples at least of private power distribution companies that I can readily think of - BSES (now Reliance), Ahmedabad Electricity Co, Surat Electrcity Co, who have done a far more decent job than government service providers, even in monopoly situations, and even before the concept of regulation took root.

So, I continue wedded to my 'policy paper', but now modified along the UP model in respect of the kind of players (to make policing easier, in addition), and with that, London model of lane marking (as propounded by Dr ASJ).

Murali

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Mr.Murali,

You are correct - I did base it on unscrupulous operators, who so far have
been the norm in private transport efforts in this country, & competitive
mechanisms involving private parties has remained under-developed for too
long now, with no certainty of any changes.

As I had said in an earlier post, larger players might not give intra-city
transport much thought as it is a volumes game, with heavy investment versus
the low fares demand by city corpns to assist the middle-income & poorer
sections. UB had won the bid for ELRTS, but demanded 94% state participation
after more careful studies revealed lack of profitability & they realized
that they might never be able to recover costs since fares were going to be
kept low & regulated by the state govt - the matter had ended there for the
ELRTS project after so much of study & planning.

Whilst I agree that PPP models are the way ahead - & you have also pointed
this out in many related discussions, my belief is that for urban transport,
the larger players will stay clear unless fares can be made unregulated -
many govts will hesitate as urban transport is more related to city
development & for attracting investments, creation of jobs, image, etc. &
the returns are indirect thro' tax revenues, etc. There are exceptions,
though - Indore on PPP model has set a new trend & is beginning to look like
a cash cow with handsome profits.

Take Raj Travels (inter-city buses). I had used it first when they had just
launched & made a trip to chennai - it was a great experience & worth the
high fare. However, when I wanted to go to chennai again & asked them, they
had reduced the no. of trips & stated that the bus that I was interested in
would operate only if a minimum of 12 seats were booked - & I wud be left
hanging till the last minute without any confirmation. So, I had decided to
fly instead - and this was inter-city travel without any fares control. When
such is the state of bus operations in this country, we cannot be sure that
the desirable turnaround will occur, even if govts try hard to push it
thro'. The usual drama of protests, RTIs & PILs would have to be gone thro'
until the sector stabilises, & this might take years, if not decades as it
effects very large sections of the commuting public within the city.

As for Mayawati, we will have to wait & see how many bids she receives as
investment in 4000 buses would be of the order of 1000+ crores in a Bimaru
state - a tall order indeed.

Re. Bus Lanes, it is quite clear that no matter how excellent the supply
side of public bus transport is, the service will only have as much quality
as the traffic conditions allow. There really is no point having great AC
bus service only to be caught up in heavy traffic & reach the destination an
hour late - the commute itself is a time penalty for people. In addition, if
there are delays in transit, the quality will be seen as inferior, & this is
why all vans, SUVs, company mini-buses are in such a rush. Without
physically separated lanes, I dont think this part of the quality, which is
very vital will work.

I have made this amply clear in a previous blog about fare-quality (link
below).
http://bangalore.praja.in/bangalore/blog/naveen/2008/05/01/public-bus-transport-fare-quality-nexus


Naveen

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There certainly is an initial investment, but a fraction of the cost of Metro's and other expensive solutions. But it will need a political will to be able to implement such a cost-effective system.

And if implemented this can become a self feeding system. As buses will be able to move faster than the other un-segregated traffic more people will be pulled towards using buses and as a result of the good volumes more buses can be added and profitability improved.

There also would be a need to have higher capacity buses (read double deck buses). So that we can make much better use of the exclusive road space available. And also the need for good quality buses so people from all different spectrums can start using buses with ease.

The next step, after a phase 1 of such a project can see good response would be to discourage the purchase/use of private vehicles (cars, not bikes) so that seeing the vacant roads (because many people would have moved to using buses) do not feel tempted to buy more cars and we have a bad situation again. 

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Good Suggestions Naveen. Hope BMTC, BBMP and other stake holders would consider this.

I think, BBMP and BMTC could break even for the investment made for this in couple of years by providing ample space for advertisements. They can advertise in underpass, steel grills used for bus lanes and bus stops. They can also use this space to improve public awareness.

Few of my fellow Bangloreans might not agree to this idea, but i feel they should use this space for advertisements to generate more money so that entire cost to build such infrastructure would not be put on public through cess or taxes!

Naveen

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I feel that maintenance of a car is a bit headache.  Everynow and then you have to wash it, atleast once in 2 days either you use it or not, spares are very expensive even for the cheapest car such as M800, very low fuel efficiency as compared to 2 wheelers, headache of dents and scratches, battery gets discharged if not used regularly, parking space at home or in front of home, expensive insurance as high as 8,000 for M800 itself every year, cannot push the car if it breaks down like 2 wheelers atleast to the side of the road, etc. etc..

It is so comfortable to travel in public transport if it is fully improved. No headache of scratch or dent, it is owned by bus company, at the insurance cost of your car per month you can buy a bus pass for that month. Advantages are many.  This can become even better if we have dedicated bus lanes. Bus users can do a 'Tata' to car users struck in traffic on the motor lanes.

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Critical pieces are these dedicated lanes, how they get built and maintained needs the most thinking and creativity.

there are three areas of operation here, in the order of importance.

1. People transport (buses),
2. Movement infrastructure (lanes), and
3. Static infrastructure (bus stands).

How and whether to end BMTC's monopoly BMTC comes next, what is more important is that #1 and #2 and #3 be handed out to separate set of players. Neither BMTC, nor BBMP should build or operate the dedicated lanes. Think a company (lets say Bengaluru Bus Toll Gates Ltd) leasing land from BBMP (assuming all road real estate belongs to BBMP). That company then builds, operates and maintains these segregated lanes. This company would make money by charging users of dedicated lanes a usage fee. They could make money by running ads along their 'airspace' as well.

The thing we dont realize is that BMTC gets to use an important public asset - roads. Today, operating roads is joint responsibility of multiple bodies (BBMP, BDA, Traffic Police, BMRDA depending on the location, situation and type of operation). We dont want to leave dedicated lanes like that, or in the hands of a pure-public entity. One benefit is that  BBMP/BMTC don't have to incur the huge one time expenses of building or carving out these lanes. Second, treating dedicated lanes as semi-private asset (basically usage-based fee model, as opposed to life-time tax or taken-for-granted model) will help make BRTS viable over time.

As for areas of operation #2 and #3 (refer the list of three above), we have discussed them well elsewhere on this website.

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Naveen,

Good presentation! I think now we should look at lessons learnt from past. They experimented a dedicated bus lane from Palace guttahalli to Hebbal a few years back and later scrapped as it was a failure. What are the lessons we can learn from that? What went wrong and what went right? I think it would be next step to extract this from BMTC/traffic police folks.

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Navshot - The experiments with bus lanes in bangalore so far have been without any investment or alteration of infrastructure to support & sustain it. Such an experiment is doomed to failure as traffic conflicts will occur & keep increasing with rise in vehicle volumes. Wherever lane conflicts occur, typically at intersections, the bus lane must be grade separated. With these magic boxes, arranging these is easier than casting an overpass or building an underpass at site. Throughout the length of a bus lane, from end to end, it must be ensured that all possible & potential conflict points are grade separated & taken care of. Hence, the need for so many of these as there are a very large no. of intersections, even on arterial roads. This is the reason why bus services are poor & cant get you to your destination in time, & people opt out & travel in private vehicles, since they are more nimble & can manoever quicker than buses.

SB - your post abt managing bus lanes & rolling stock - important questions there. I think only one bus operator must be permitted to operate in each corridor. Thus, if there are six corridors, a maximum of six operators should be allowed (one for each). This is because if two or more operate on the same route, they are bound to compete for buisness & safety concerns can arise.

Infrastructure development & maintenance can be leased out to private parties in exchange for advertising rights, etc. as you mentioned - maybe such a model can work.

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ELRTS was long before the economy had actually opened up. Those days the Indian Corporates didn't have the kind of muscle they have today to take up such challenges. Today, on the other hand, Indian corporates are ready to take on even Metro projects - in Mumbai, one such job is being taken up by one of the Ambani groups. And, the aam aadmi has also evolved, and is today prepared to pay a decent price for value received.

Raj Travels are in the same category as our own SRS, VRL, Sharma, Kallada, etc, and I suspect they all are not licensed properly for carrying on their kind of operations. Either the licence fee levels have deliberately been fixed very high by the babu's, in the name of revenue considerations, or they will have these categorised as government monopoly domains. They will then find loop-holes for the operators, and those willing to play ball, get into business, the others stay out. That's precisely why the image conscious TATA's and TVS's have kept their distance from such operations.

Opening up of the services to the private sector, I agree, could face some resistance. But, if my understanding is right, the resistance is slowly weakening. If Mayawati succeeds, even if partially, that will be a major break-through.

Whatever, the dedicated lane system you have proposed is certainly far better than what Delhi has worked out. But, in places like the IRR between Koramangala and Indiranagar, if two middle lanes are taken up by your dedicated lanes, my wife will certainly have to abandon her car for her daily commute to Indiranagar. Atleast, if there are decent shuttle services provided by Muralidhar Rao Associates P Ltd, at both ends, you may survive. Otherwise, you are in deep trouble, man!

Muralidhar Rao

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a comment in common to multiple threads. The vision for TBS should be resolved first. one system trying to do both long and short hauls is going to fail the city. navshot's data, CCTF reports, CTTF, metro TS, personal experiences etc are all shouting that bangalore's TBS has to reinvent itself as a viable transport option for short haul(<9kms). It has to address the 45% of bangalore's short haul trips that is not addressed at any respectable levels by existing TBS. for example, the average trip length in mumbai is 22kms. the average trip length of BEST buses is 5-6kms. murali-raayru has been taking of intra nagar services for a while now. apart from intra nagar, perhaps inter nagar to adjacent nagars is the way to go. the point is keep the hauls short. so that you can meet frequency requirements that are crucial for short haul. otherwise you will lose short haul passengers. if we agree that TBS should reinvent itself as a short haul carrier, then, the next step is to see how the TBS can be organized to achieve that vision of TBS as a short haul carrier. perhaps koramangala is best served by murali metro. This leads directly to long haul. since around 54% of all bangalore's trips are long haul and buses carry about 70% of these trips, we need to find better and more efficient ways of doing long haul. this is where ideas for long haul that naveen, vasanth, blrsri etc have been talking about come in. it is crucially important to be able to do traffic properly. lanes, enforcement, driver behaviour etc etc- the fundamentals - they need to be addressed, for sure, but it is does not follow that efficency in one, design improvements to optimize traffic will have to comprehensive for it to be meaningful. even if you decide fix only the major arteries, you have to re-do all junctions including the small ones. these all translate to money and time. though the biggest challenge is driver behavior. sure, bangalore's drivers are not exactly the world's best, but 'erratic maneavers' are a universal phenomena. that is why there are papers show that while 2 lanes can do 4p pcus, 3 lanes can only do 5.5p pcus. in some countries with excellent driving discipline, they still require truck drivers doing long haul to take mandatory breaks every 8 hrs despite all the disciplines. there is a psychological impact in doing long haul even if the roads are empty. doing it in traffic can only compound that impact. navshot's reports says variance is 5 minutes in the morning and about 10-15 minutes in the evening. if a person is doing these trips for 8 hours, his last trip has a variance of upto 80 minutes. can you imagine the stress of trying to meet deadlines with that? in any case, even if you spend every single paisa you have on driver re-education, there are no guarantees on how long before the driving conditions will improve to the levels that TBS can efficiently do long haul. infact, given the backgrounds of people with access to private vehicles, who come in everyday to the city and it is a hopelessly lost cause, though it has to addressed. bottom line, fundamentals , driver education, traffic, road design etc have to be addressed on their own merits. short and long haul pubT has to be addressed on its own merit. there is no reason to hold one hostage to another.

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Mr.Murali - You say that yr wife may have to abandon her car - this is exactly what the purpose of dedicated lanes are - priority for public transport !  If employers provide pickups & drops from/to Metro & from/to BRT bus stops, traffic will start becoming localized & the same SUV does not have to make a full circuit from home to the office - most part of the commute must be made by public transport whilst the last mile connectivity should be by her employer's SUV. If this can be acheived, then congestion levels would drop & traffic can be managed better.

This would demand highly efficient bus management within the lanes as a single bus breakdown can effect services along the entire chain - maybe BMTC (if they operate within these lanes) will be taken to task if schedules are not met & services are poor - this may shake them up, & there might even be calls for roping in private parties !

Either way, we would be winners.

The option for car use is always there, subject to availability of public parking slots (which needs to be tightly controlled) & the (high ?) costs for public parking are met. With such restraints, traffic levels should start seeing a dip - & this is what the whole discussion is about, in the first place.

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Naveen,

Proposals are excellent. We should quickly have an appointment with CTMO and Tripathy and you can present them with the idea along with BBMP officials. We should also have Mr. Srihari, who takes the major decisions along with if possible some BMRCL officials.

We should have a media tie up such as TV9 or ETV where we can express these ideas and give a demo for the same.

Somewhere we have to start with practical implementation of our ideas.

Thanks,

Vasanth

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Failure of the BRT in Delhi was partly due to people entering the dedicated bus lane. What we need is a welded gates with locks all over. One traffic marshall should have the key for this. In case a bus fails, that traffic marshall need to open the gate to take out the bus out of the bus lane.

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Last mile connectivity from BRT corridor / Metro /Mono stations can be accomplished with Shared Taxis / Autos. Merucabs and easycabs are operating for BIAL taxis. Their taxis will be on Mahindra Logan A/C platform and they charge around Rs. 15/km.

If they are given permissions to operate for last mile connectivity with sharing option with say 4 passengers with Rs 5/km per person and with individual meter for each person, it would be very economical as well as comfortable.

Even Nanos as shared taxi for 4 with A/C can be used for last mile connectivity. This is an indirect car pooling with driver. These kind of operators should be given controlled license to give last mile connectivity. They have the advantage of having a call centre. Our Autos are too unreliable. They will improve the service naturally. Since the initial investment for Nano is less, as well as it is highly fuel efficient, it can be as low as Rs. 3-4 per km.

Feedbus with common pass for Metro/Mono/BRTS will be the most economical way to go.

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Vasanth - many thanks.

Welded gates with locks - the problem with locks will be many. They are breakable with hacksaw & if one lock is opened, the gate opens ! What about keys ? There will be too many & when you require the right key, it may not be traceable ! This is why I have suggested a bolted arrangement - the mounting flanges will have to be at ground level with foundation in deep concrete. Bolt heads will have to be of the socket type with say, a triangular head slot, like an allen key. These are not available & may need to be custom made. If each bus driver carries a key, this should work better as he will be able to open it at any point with this key & move his bus out in an emergency, such as a breakdown. Others cannot open it with ordinary tools such as spanners as the bolt heads will be sunken with only an unusually shaped slot showing below flange level & there is no way to open it without the tool.

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Naveen - the organisation that my wife works for (Spastics Society of Karnataka) can barely manage to meet its current expenses. And, there are always far more important demands on them than catering to the needs of their staff.

And, the majority of the commuters are like her, and not the types who will have their employer arrange their pick up.

As such, quite as Tarle has also pointed out, short-haul shuttle services are the answer. It will have to be operated either by BMTC (the current monopoly), or by Muralidhar Rao associates.

Now, I had applied long ago for a licence to run an Intra-Koramangala service, which was later to be extended to adjoining Indiranagar, HSR layout, BTM layout, and one even to MG road/ Richmond Town. It was turned down by the government on the plea that this was a BMTC monopoly domain. If I understand correctly, the then Principal Secretary, Transport, GoK, even addressed a letter to BMTC asking them to consider oprating such a service. The BMTC started a trial operation also, right from our complex gate to Forum Mall, along a given circuit. But, they had no real stake in it, and after a few weeks, they declared it unviable, and closed it down.

So, if you are going to be pushing for this dedicated lane scheme, first ensure that Muralidhar Rao associates gets into business. Perhaps I will have you subscribe substantially to its equity. If you want a name change, no problem.

Muralidhar Rao

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Mr.Murali - really nice to know that yr wife works for spastics society, it's a great service.

If & when a BRT corridor runs on IRR, it will remove a lot of the SUVs, cars & mini-buses that are ferrying their employees to their offices, call centers, hotels, etc. from various parts of the city since employers will stop providing such services up to various areas including Koramangala. The attention for pickups & drop offs will shift to /from Metro stations & BRT stops as Metro /BRT would be comfortable, dependable & reliable transport services & employees will be expected to use them. When this happens, Muralidhar Rao associates will be able to operate without hindrance as much of the road would be freer, but the viability of the company would be in doubt as a BRT would be operating on the same road at probably lesser costs & moving faster thro’ the underpasses !  So, I am not going to buy any equity in this company – I prefer to invest in Naveen Associates !!

Short-haul shuttle services will cater as feeder services to these BRT & Metro services since such services are expensive options & cannot be spread all over. BRT is an option on wider corridors that can supplement Metro & is preferable due to it's much lower cost & flexibility. Though short haul shuttle will have a role to play, it is not an answer to all the problems, but will help reduce congestion & get people to reach long-haul transport.

You mentioned about the intra-Koramangala service that was found non-viable – I am not surprised. Most if not all fragmented services will not be able to sustain themselves. As such running a service within koramangala or within Indiranagar without links to long-haul networks will not have many takers & it is pointless running such a service.

BRT is proven as a low-cost mass transport option & the routes I have chosen are such that there will be takers & will be feasible as roads are wide, & providing a lane is not difficult.

The shortest BRT route is in Majestic area, but here, it has been recommended because there will be a lot of people wanting to quickly commute between these various activity centers + it also connects with the Metro at two points – so, viability is not in question.

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Good presentatin and a very practical suggestion Naveen, I totally agree that the Flyovers across the city have been failures barring probably the one on city market/Mysore Road.There is no forethought whatsoever in their planning.In fact ven the newer ones that are coming up are a disaster, so, we need to look for better alternatives and solutions to decongest the roads before it is too late.......

http://kiran8-various.blogspot.com/

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These points would be useful for any disussions with BMTC http://www.hasiruusiru.org/blog/2008/04/meeting-mr-dastagir-sharif-chief.html

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The grid route services recommended by the CCTF (and feeder services to service the grid routes) is already there before the BMTC management. Since Bangalore already has a one-way system in most of the central districts, the one-lane BRT can possibly be incorporated into the grid system readily. But, I am apprehensive about the various kinds of problems that the maze of underpasses and overpasses that it will call for. As such, I'll still root for Dr ASJ's London model, and more professional bus operations.

The intra-nagar/ inter-adjoining-nagar shuttle services need not be unviable. There's a tremendous demand, and if catered to properly, they can very much become viable. BMTC declaring them unviable proves just one thing - that they never had a stake in it even to begin with.

Further, when there's a great demand, and it's sought to be met sincerely, but it is faced with a viability problem, obviously there are artificialities coming in the way, and I would consider it the government's duty to remove them. And, the citizen's duty to demand that!

Muralidhar Rao

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Mr.Murali,

The grid route system under CCTF is another great idea.

We only suggest - the decision by them will be subject to faesibility reports & only then will they opt for the best & most practicable solutions.

Your apprehensions add to mine - the no. of underpasses are too many, but if they get several private parties to do it in widely spread out spots, the disruption can be managed better, I guess. Even if some are ready whilst others are still under construction on a particular route, the disruption will not be excessively great as only one lane in the middle (or a wider divider) gets taken away & traffic can still move past it.

For intra-nagar /inter-adjoining-nagar shuttle services, if there are further links to other parts of the city at least from one side, it might work, but my point is that if they are fragmented & not connected to other bus or metro routes, it will fail mostly as bus loads of people within a nagar or between two adjacent nagars all day will not be there & the route may not be viable. During peak hours, this might work in some areas, but they need to be painstakingly identified. Someone had made a post quoting Hasiru-Usiru's interaction with CTMO in which he had stated that koramangala services were unviable.

I did not follow yr comment below on artificialities - cud you explain further ?

// Further, when there's a great demand, and it's sought to be met sincerely, but it is faced with a viability problem, obviously there are artificialities coming in the way, and I would consider it the government's duty to remove them. And, the citizen's duty to demand that //

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its is a very good presentation and very good thread to read through. I had read about dedicated bus lanes in prajavani more than 3 years ago. but nothing has happened in practical. Naveen do you have any updates on any actions taken by the Govt on this idea.

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Hi, BRT is on the backfoot now as there were several problems with it in Delhi & Pune, since they merely copied existing systems overseas & discovered that it does'nt quite work in a similar way here, in this country. However, my bet is that this will be the one mass transit option that will be used widely in India as we need low-cost options for the hundreds of millions of people who are below poverty line, & who will be migrating to cities in large nos. in the near future. If we find ways to make it fool-proof & functional & suit it to our requirements, this would be the best option. Please also read through the blog "CTTP Review – Further Comments & Inputs", in which I have tried to elaborate further.

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